The Employment Law Counselor

On April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-2 to approve the Final Rule that (1) prohibits employers from entering into non-compete agreements with workers and (2) requires employers to rescind nearly all existing non-compete agreements. The Final Rule is effective 120 days after its forthcoming publication in the Federal Register, which we expect will happen in the next 30 days.

The Final Rule comes more than a year after the FTC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (the “Proposed Rule”) to ban practically all non-compete agreements. The FTC ... Continue Reading

On July 3, 2023, the Chica Project, African Community Economic Development of New England (ACEDONE), and Greater Boston Latino Network (GBLN) (collectively the “Complainants”) filed a civil rights Complaint with the Department of Education alleging that Harvard College’s (“Harvard”) continued use of “Donor and Legacy Preferences” violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”). The Complainants argue that the Donor and Legacy admission preferences are not necessary to achieve an important educational goal and have a “significant” ... Continue Reading

On June 12, a federal jury in Camden, New Jersey returned a verdict in favor of Shannon Phillips, a white Starbucks Regional Director who claimed that she was terminated from her management level position on the basis of her race. Phillips claimed that after media coverage of the arrests of two black customers who were sitting in a Philadelphia Starbucks store, she was directed to suspend a white District Manager with no connection to the Philadelphia store, based on alleged discriminatory conduct. Phillips claimed that she informed Starbucks supervisors that the race-based ... Continue Reading

On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act and Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (“PWFA” or “Act”) into law. The PWFA requires “covered employers” to provide “reasonable accommodations” to a worker’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless the accommodation will cause the employer an “undue hardship.”

The Act applies only to accommodations, and does not replace federal, state, or local laws that provide greater protections to workers affected by pregnancy, childbirth ... Continue Reading

Last month, the EEOC filed a first of its kind lawsuit in federal court in Georgia based on an employer’s denial of an accommodation request to work from home. In the suit, the employee, a former health and safety manager at a facility services company, alleged that at the start of the pandemic, she requested to work from home as an accommodation for her chronic obstructive lung disease and hypertension. Shortly after her request, the company directed its employees to work from home four days per week. In June 2020, the company required that all staff to return to in-person work at the facility five days per week.Continue Reading

The United States Supreme Court recently reshaped the relationship between universities and the athletes who play college sports in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston et al. In the Alston case, the Court upheld a trial court injunction against NCAA rules that limit the education-related benefits schools may offer student athletes. Notably, the Court did not consider the lower court’s rulings that upheld NCAA limits on noneducational benefits and compensation that student athletes may receive. Regardless, in a unanimous opinion, the Court noted deep skepticism about the “amateur label” of college sports as argued by the NCAA and ruled that the NCAA’s rules restricting education-related benefits violate federal antitrust laws. In a concurring opinion, Justice Kavanaugh specifically noted that the argument “that colleges may decline to pay student athletes because the defining feature of college sports … is that the student athletes are not paid … is circular and unpersuasive.”Continue Reading